When he hopped on a warming bus for the quick jaunt to neighboring Hershey late Thursday afternoon, Luis Cervantes didn’t need to be reminded about the growing targets that hitched a ride on the back of his jersey — and those belonging to everyone else in Lower Dauphin blue.

Just part of the package that comes with sitting in first place.

Shrugging off a serious challenge from the wound-up Trojans that lasted until the final moments, Cervantes bagged two goals and set up two others as Gerry Lynch’s first-place Falcons held off Hershey 4-3 in an entertaining Keystone Division soccer scrap at chilly Hershey High School.

Colten Nagy and Nick Sincavage also connected for LD (11-1, 9-1), which stretched its winning streak to seven games.

Liam Hulse, Jordan Wix Rauch and John Luderitz buried finishes for Les Heggan’s passionate Trojans (8-5, 5-4) -- Ben Haines dished out a pair of assists -- who had a chance to pull even in the final two minutes.

However, an indirect free kick from about nine yards out set up by a goalkeeper error that led to a Haines blast was turned away by a compact Falcons bunch that had everyone parked between the posts.

Of course, it took the referees what seemed like five minutes to get everyone positioned properly.

Yet ...

First place continued to belong to LD.

“They were coming for us and we knew that,” said Cervantes, a technically adept junior forward whose right-footed strike arrived with 2:59 gone in the second half gave the Falcons a 3-1 lead. Then, capping a quick counter with 23:39 to play, Cervantes planted a left-footed rip that made it 4-2.

“So we knew we had to work even harder to put them away.”

And it wasn’t until the horn sounded and the clock sported 0:00 that LD’s latest success could be tucked away in the vault for safekeeping.

Hershey just kept forcing the issue.

"We definitely did our best to keep it interesting," remarked Lynch, whose Falcons snared the Keystone Division lead with Tuesday night's 2-1 victory over Mechanicsburg. "Offensively, I thought we were on.

"They came at us hard."

Barely a minute after Cervantes’ first finish, Wix Rauch closed the gap to one (3-2) by stuffing a Haines dish past Collin Long (5 saves). Then, with 7:24 to play, Luderitz yanked the Trojans back to within one when he bumped in a Hulse restart that pinged off the right upright.

“The nice thing, from my standpoint, is we competed,” said Heggan, whose ballclub lost junior Dalton Adwe to a serious knee injury in the opening five minutes. “It was nice to see our boys come back.

“They could have easily given up.”

Several times.

That wasn’t going to happen — and it didn’t — with a first-place team sitting on the other bench.

"That was our biggest fear, and we talked about it, was coming off the Mechanicsburg game could we get back up for another game this week," Lynch said. "And we knew Hershey was coming for us and coming hard. It was like that the first time we played them."

A quick start certainly had LD off and running.

While Cervantes' restart pinballed in off Nagy's gourd just 3:53 into a fast-paced contest that was back-and-forth and full of effort -- yet didn't offer all that many style points -- LD could have grabbed total control.

But merely 61 seconds later, Hulse tucked away an offensive rebound after Long got plenty of Haines' pop from the left side of the box.

And even though things remained knotted up for a considerable stretch, Cervantes nearly put the Falcons back in front with about 12 minutes left in the half. Back Jake Cronin, parked on the end line, kneed away that rip, keeping the game locked in a 1-1 stalemate.

Unfortunately for the Trojans, they couldn't reach halftime without conceding another score. And there was Cervantes again, firing a low cross from the right wing with less than a minute to go that the opportunistic Sincavage volleyed past diminutive goalkeeper D.J. Pawlush (2 saves).

"It was a killer when we gave up that one with 30 seconds left in the first half," said Heggan, who won nearly 500 games while coaching in south New Jersey before coming to Hershey.

"Then we fought our way back, but we gave up that fourth. It kind of energized us."

Hershey did begin to fight its way back after the break, but not until after a tremendous individual effort from Cervantes led to LD's third score.

Nearly dispossessed twice -- once near the end line and again at the top edge of the penalty area -- the persistent Cervantes made the Trojans pay for their near-miss by burying a right-footed shot just inside the right post.

"Big-time shots for that boy," Heggan lamented.

"I knew we needed the win, so I had to work hard and put in the effort -- and it paid off," Cervantes said. "Thank God."

Enter Wix Rauch, who responded to Cervantes' finish, but authoring one of his own at the 4:14 mark. Energized and dominant for the next 10 minutes -- tiny freshman Tanner Theritt nearly tied it but his headball glanced off the crossbar -- Hershey was unable to find an equalizer.

"You could see we were back on our heels a little bit," Lynch said. "We didn't have the stamina to put the effort in to run with them again."

Cervantes certainly did.

And once he turned Sincavage's ball into a fourth score with 23-plus minutes to go, the Falcons had what they needed -- even though the Trojans made a strong push to send this thing to extra time.

Never got there.

"He's been due for a game like this," Lynch said of Cervantes. "He's been coming close and coming close. He just works his tail off."